1. Field
The exemplary embodiments generally relate to material handling systems and, more particularly, to transport and sorting of items within the material handling system.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
Multilevel storage and retrieval systems may be used in warehouses for the storage and retrieval of goods. Generally the transportation of goods into and out of the storage structure is done with lifts for transfer to a vehicle on a storage level, vehicles travelling up ramps to a predetermined storage level, or with vehicles that include lifts traveling along guide ways. Throughput of these storage and retrieval systems may be limited by one or more of the retrieval of the goods at a storage level and the transfer of goods between storage levels.
It would be advantageous to increase vehicle payload handling throughput by combining movement of payload handling manipulation axes of a transport vehicle and sorting of payloads on the transport vehicle.